forever and you're gone
by impracticality
Summary: • minorcharacters, drabbles; Infinity is fleeting — and one day can't even come close. •
1. your girlfriend wants me

**||forever and you're gone**

**||01. your girlfriend wants me - Rikimaru x Tatsuya**

**||notes :: This pairing is sexy~ It's my minor character OTP :D**

-x-

—_your girlfriend wants me_

|don't fight the **feeling**, baby|

-x-

By default, Rikimaru has bragging rights over Tatsuya. Because even though Rikimaru had lost to a like-minded loudmouth who'd bluffed his way through the whole match, even though he'd clenched his fists hard enough to draw blood, even though he'd written on scrap-paper and planned out creative ways to win or die trying - the other had lost to a _girl_.

That doesn't stop him from laughing.

Rikimaru's rebuttal to his sadistic amusement is nothing less than profane - and Tatsuya answers this with a sharp response and a swing of fists, because this is how teenage boys settle differences.

Two minutes later, Tatsuya has a black eye. Fifteen minutes later, after he's bandaged up and glaring at Rikimaru from across the nurse's office, he finds himself with swollen lips too. But it was his fault; he was the one who had to bring Rikimaru's girlfriend - and Rikimaru's ability to satisfy her - into the equation.


	2. pH

**||forever and you're gone**

**||02. pH - Dan x Ryo**

**||notes :: Though I haven't exactly seen the episode, I'm pretty convinced Ryo had a crush on Dan. Prove me wrong. :P**

-x-

—_pH_

|they were an **acid-base reaction**|

-x-

"I didn't mean it," he says, and this is why it's all the more painful.

Ryo knows he's not even on Dan's radar - Dan's life is tumultuous, up-and-down, stop-and-go, with no room for logic, or him. But Ryo - Ryo is different, yes, and this is why they gravitate around opposite ends of the spectrum.

He is defined by careful statistics, painful pragmatics, electricity and skyscraper's tall shadows. He doesn't understand things like adoration and respect - yet this is what he had given Dan, in painfully awkward unknowingness. Neither does he understand impatience and uncaring - yet this is what Dan had given him in return, in brash insensitivity.

He's weak, he knows, Dan's told him as much. Guilt-trips and fumbling apologizes won't change his docile nature or his paper-thin resolve.

And yet when Dan speaks empty words, transient as smoke, Ryo can't help but feel a spark of something inexplicably happy - because he's Ryo and he's Dan; this is who they are.

"I didn't mean it," he says, and Ryo is helpless to do anything but smile in return.


	3. violet venom

**||forever and you're gone**

**||03. violet venom - Travis x Alice**

-x-

—_violet venom_

|it won't go to your **nervous system**, but straight to your **heart**|

-x-

She's dangerous, very dangerous - she sweeps her eyelids with glitter and cheekbones with powder - she's painted herself like something beautiful, but he knows she's something deadly.

In her presence, the whole world lights up, and Christopher, Christopher especially, can't help but glow in her radiance. They welcome her smiling death.

"Weak and strong," she murmurs, hands folded and dark eyes transfixed on his, eerily, "That doesn't make a difference. If the trust between you and your Bakugan is strong enough, together you can overcome anything." This is apparently some sort of mocking condolence, after he's lost to a boy half his age.

Her lies are so sweet; he almost wants to believe them. But he knows better than that, and so he scoffs at her. "Trust is for the weak." The weak who aren't strong enough to survive alone.

She watches him sadly, as if staring through his soul. She rather looks like she wants to box up his heart all for her own, and entreat him to her own slow method of gentle death.

(Little does he know, he's already infected.)


	4. paper chaser

**||forever and you're gone**

**||04. paper chaser - Billy x Jenny/Jewls (I used Jenny but either one works, to be honest. I'm just biased because I like Dan x Jewls~)**

**||notes :: To the anonymous reviewer who requested Shun x Alice: No. :3 Read the summary.**

**EDIT - Mmkay, now I'm getting mad. Stop asking me to write pairings that involve two major characters when the summary clearly says MINOR CHARACTER PAIRINGS. It makes you look like an idiot.**

**Plus, 'reviews' that request pairings and don't remark on the story content AT ALL really piss me off in general. If you want Alice x Shun/Ace/your mom/whomever that much, WRITE IT YOURSELF. Or find someone else to bother, because I don't take requests from people like that.**

**I'm laid-back most of the time. Don't make me rant about something as trivial as this.**

-x-

—_paper chaser_

|I go for the **green**|

-x-

They're expected to be together, because Billy is twenty-something and successful, Jenny is twenty-something and successful, and the two of them glitter bright enough to outshine any spotlight. They're hatedadoredfamous, and in front of camera flashes, they're in love.

Backstage, they absolutely despise each other.

She's high-maintenance and flighty, and while her voice on stage is that of a (lip-synching) angel, it reaches a shrill pitch when she shouts at him. Her screeching sentiments of 'pay attention to me!' and 'don't you care about anything but yourself?' fall on deaf ears.

He's vapid and has a one-track mind, and he can admit that. The only things of importance to him are expensive leather and worn red stitches, stardust-lined diamonds and three strikes.

So in the end they move in opposite directions (she chases platinum and he chases contracts) because, the other be damned -

they go where the money goes.


	5. seal it with a kiss

**||forever and you're gone**

**||05. seal it with a kiss - Takashi x Makoto x Kosuke**

**||notes :: liek omg! I got my first real flame! :DD This is so totally a milestone in my writing not-really-career! **

**Perchance, hon, are you one of the Alice pairing requesters~? So nice of you to leave a review that actually remarks on the story content, thank youuu (So amusing too. The 'b*tch of a fanfic' comment made me lol. You're just a bit short of coherent, darling).**

**This chapter is dedicated to you, sweetie~! :D**

**In other news, I'm not sure if I got the names right for this chapter. I used Bakuwiki rather than the actual episode for my source xD**

-x-

—_seal it with a kiss_

|don't bother including a **P.S.**|

-x-

Takashi folds stars out of perforated notebook paper, and writes love notes in whiteout on the margins.

But he always was a fool in romanticism.

Makoto's older now and he knows that just because someone might defend you (or your sister) to the point of lovely madness, and acquiesce their own pride to see you smile, doesn't mean you're obligated to love them. He does not love Takashi, and he is not sorry; while Takashi wants lacy sentimentalities, Kosuke does not expect anything more than honest apathy.

Kosuke doesn't care much for Makoto's starry-eyed delicateness, after all. It was his blonde guardian angel who locked up his heart and pocketed the key.

"So fold paper stars," Makoto smiles at Takashi, innocent enough, "And use china ink," as decadent as painted hearts may be.

It doesn't matter, those postmarked letters will never be opened.


	6. caffienated fairytales

**||forever and you're gone**

**||06. caffienated fairytales — Ryo x Joe (PART I)**

-x-

—caffeinated fairytales

|don't crash before the **happily ever after**|

-x-

When Ryo logs on to the chatroom it is three hours past midnight, there are forty-two messages in his inbox, and a half-drunk cup of coffee is sitting on his desk. There are zero guests browsing and one user.

He does Dan's homework, then his own. By the time the clock strikes to commemorate another hour's sands drained, he's bleary eyed and emptying artificial sugar packets into his second cup. He cradles his head in his palm.

Two minutes of listening to the Sandman's lullaby will be enough to lessen the sting in his bloodshot retinas, he reasons. He's too tired to calculate how much time he can afford to spend dreaming of a world beyond his computer screen.

A window pops up in the lower-right corner of the screen.

'Webmaster,' the name says, preceding the letters h-e-l-l-o spelled out in lowercase.

Ryo pauses, then his fingers over the keyboard of their own accord, responding in kind.

Webmaster. Devisor of magic codes, painter of crisp layouts, banisher of HTTP404 errors and fire-breathing viruses.

He smiles to himself; it's clear he hasn't slept in two days.

Webmaster introduces himself as Joe. Ryo thinks he likes 'Webmaster' better. Webmaster has heard of Ryo. He's heard of the quirky pragmatism, the brilliant strategies, the methodical, mechanical mannerisms.

Thanks, Dan, Ryo thinks.

Webmaster would like to meet with Ryo. He wants to know if Ryo is interested in becoming one of the website's staff.

Ryo says he will think about it. He is tired of reading pages of ones and zeroes and he's tired of bloodshot retinas and electronic-induced insomnia.

The Webmaster sends a picture of himself for identification, just in case—

Ryo says yes.


	7. supernova

**||forever and you're gone**

**||07. supernova **— **Dan x Jewls**

-x-

—supernova

|**perfection** doesn't suit you|

-x-

Fabia is perfect. She is beautiful and noble and fair and smells like carnations -

then she reminds him that carnations don't have a fragrance, and the dead petals and dreams adorning her jewelless tiara shine like raw blood. He thinks that maybe Fabia is not so regal and kind after all.

Julie is perfect. She is happy and bubbly and effervescent, and she really, truly understands him -

then she smiles plastically and tells him all the right things at all the wrong times, and he realizes that Julie is a better actor than he thought she was. He thinks that maybe Julie is not so cheery and cherry-pink after all.

Mira is perfect. She is constant like the North Star and as stable as rubber cement and she holds galaxies in the palm of her hand -

then she's gone.

"I'm soo sorry," Jewls says, and dabs flowerseed-oil on her wrists.

I know, he wants to say.

She turns to him, smiling with synthetic sympathy. "But there are other girls, aren't there?"

There's you, he wants to say.

Her phone trills out an eight-bit rendition of her and her paparazzi-hounded friend's latest single, and she stands, leaving behind the styrofoam cup with her kiss-mark still staining the rim. "I have to go." Her strappy, high-heeled shoes clack against the ground, tapping out a melody in D minor.

Stay, he wants to say.

But she's already out the door.


	8. the ideal

**forever&you're gone**

.

.

.

**(—the ideal)**

**zenet&julie**

.

.

.

Except she really isn't looking for romance at all; and instinct is not the same as feeling, not really, so the concept of guiltiness doesn't even occur to her when her lip gloss is smudged and the seams of her tight pink dress are torn all up and down the sides (the cheapness of the fabric was hidden in the dim lighting, before filed nails pulled at her waist and stiletto straps brushed against her ankle).

Bright-eyed smiles and facades of limitations are easy enough to fake by daytime, but she's sick of it and everyone already knows she has no self-restraint anyway.

Starshaped earrings remind her of darker worlds and blended skies, so she goes ahead and admits it: "I can't stand to see anyone else right now."

And the doppleganger Zenet assumes of her must not be quite so flawless as last time, because, examining eyes the same inky shade of blue as her own—she's sure that the raw desperate look of them must be the other girl's delusion.


	9. cooler than you

**||notes.**

**—guess who's been attempting to successfully write shoujo-ai?**

**—i blame Persia/Sakuya. damn its lulzyness/fluffyness/angstyness~**

**.**

**(**—**cooler than you)**

**zenet&julie**

**.**

Zenet can't resist a toothy grin when, after the initial vacant look that she's come to recognize as a quirk of Julie's; the dark-eyed dreamer leans in and hums against her neck.

"You are like…the best _ever_," Julie says in-between kisses, and her lip gloss leaves Zenet's skin sticky, but she doesn't really mind. She just smoothes aside her fakely platinum hair, and hopes that Julie will masquerade as _her _sometime—

A little narcissism here and there never hurt anyone, really (in fact, she decides afterwards when she's trying to catch her breath, it seems to do quite the opposite).


End file.
